HE funding squeeze reignites top-up fee fury

10 Mar 05
University teachers and lecturers could be facing below-inflation salary increases following a settlement that increases core funding by just 1%, the higher education sector has warned.

11 March 2005

University teachers and lecturers could be facing below-inflation salary increases following a settlement that increases core funding by just 1%, the higher education sector has warned.

The Higher Education Funding Council for England has increased the teaching budget by 5.4% to just over £4bn. But, according to Universities UK, the real-terms figure is much lower once money earmarked for specific projects has been discounted.

'It is a concern that the average increase in core funding will be insufficient to fund salary settlements in line with inflation,' said Diana Warwick, its chief executive. 'The real-terms increase in funding for teaching of just 1% shows how vital fee income will be for institutions in maintaining high-quality provision in the future.'

Natfhe, the university and college lecturers' union, expressed little surprise at the settlement, saying it continued the under-funding of HE teaching.

General secretary Paul Mackney said the 1% increase indicated that the 'government intends to use future top-up fees to replace, not supplement, public funding on higher education'.

He added: 'Many of the universities doing most to widen participation will receive much smaller funding increases than those that do little to widen their student base. In some cases their income will even decrease.'

But HEFCE chief executive Sir Howard Newby insisted that the settlement, announced on March 10, was a stable one.

'Our main concern has been to provide universities and colleges with stability and greater financial security as they plan for the introduction of variable fees in 2006/07,' he said.

A total of 91 universities, 30 higher education colleges and 153 further education colleges will share the £6.3bn settlement, which will support 982,000 full-time equivalent student places.

The most generous increase was given to research, with the £1.25bn settlement representing a 10.8% rise from the previous year's figure.

The funds will be allocated according to the quality and volume of research carried out at each university in accordance with the results of 2001's research evaluation exercise.

But both Universities UK and Natfhe expressed concern at the concentration of research funds in elite universities, which they said was likely to hamper UK research as a whole.

PFmar2005

Did you enjoy this article?

AddToAny

Top